Addictions (gamers and druggies)

Odd thing about druggies:

Why is it people with addictions or vices always try to pressure you into having them as well? I’m not just talking about conventional, excepted vices like pot – which someone keeps trying to get me into (peer pressure SO doesn’t work on me because I don’t care lol).

I’m also talking things like World of Warcraft. I play the game. Sometimes. And what’s funny to me is that those “wow-heads” who are on 365/days a year and have all these massively powerful characters and this is the focus of their life: they seem to take some sort of weird offense to those of us to whom it’s just a game. I play when I’m having fun. Sure, I’ll be on the game for hours. For a month or so. When I’m not having fun anymore, I cancel. I’ll go back to it again some other time and have fun again. It’s a game and games I play to have fun. I have no beef whatsoever with people to whom it’s a way of life. I’m all about each to their own and I think it’s great if you found something you love and want to indulge yourself. You go. But I do find it amusing, and interesting, that the very same reaction comes from addicted Warcraft players as with any other chemical addiction: you must be like us or you are less than – with a defensive undertone `I feel you’re criticism, so I’m going to criticize you’ LOL.

I also find the other side of Warcraft criticism interesting: the outsiders who do not play computer games and heap insults, derogatory comments and general malaise upon those who do. What I find most amusing about this, is that those bits of criticism generally come from people who never leave their couch because they’re playing an Xbox, Playstation, Nintendo – (etc)…addicted to Halo 3, Gears of War, Virtual Football, Guitar Hero…”etc”.Hil-ar-i-ous.The same people who randomly toss out “fag” and “geek” and “loser” at people who sit in their room and play a game online with tons of people,will sit in a room for hours playing a game online with other people. Smirk Yet one is considered “antisocial” and one is considered “social”. Okey dokey then.

Do not mistake my comments for some sort of social judgment. I imply no judgment on either or any party – I’m OK with myself and my interests, I’m ok with them coming or going or indulging them when I feel like it and I think y’all ought to be, too. Even when it comes to drugs – all other issues like legality, health, whateva are all other issues, but what I’m saying is that what you want for yourself is your beans and I’m cool with your beans – wish the world would learn to be cool with everybody else’s (non-outside-damaging) decisions. The criticized, criticize. Always blows my mind. To me, if you’re criticizing someone else it emphasizes some point about you not being comfortable with yourself. And I find that kind of thing sort of sad.

And it’s always super emphasized with addictions. I don’t insist anyone else drink Mt. Dew. That’s my thing (an addiction I’m breaking, almost got it, btw – but that’s just me). I do as I see fit. I don’t judge as it doesn’t fit – the world is vast, God is infinite, philosophies vary and I want everyone to be as happy with their day as they can manage to be. It seems odd to me to let negativity toward what someone else is doing with their day get in the way of your good flow.

**To be fair to Warcraft, I have witnessed the same phenomenon on City of Heroes, the other online game I play. In CoH, your characters (toons) enter into a social contract of sorts called a “Super Group”. I have been kicked out of SG’s before because I refuse to stay on and pay for any month in which I’m just not into the game at all. I have been criticized for not being on much at all in the first few years of the game. People who play the game always, since it came out years ago, think themselves superior. I think this is amusing. Everybody is the same, LOL. Just different ;’). I have not witnessed the same amount of overt “noob” (new or slamming the experience of a player) throwingas in Warcraft but in fairness I play CoH on one of the nicer servers (Virtue) and CoH does not have the same kind of population Warcraft does. Warcraft is such a vast sampling of the population – 10 million players, worldwide. Last nightI was talking and playing with some nice guy in New Zealand. Cool. So the only real difference between these two games is the population sample. **